Rerelease: Roy Choi

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome, welcome. Oh, I'm scared me. I didn't know what he was going to do.

I had nothing planned. I went. I'm scared. What's your name?

You're going to introduce us. I'm Rob. Have you ever heard of the award you have? This is Monica.

Padman. Thank you. We're all here. Yeah, thanks for having me.

We're picking our favorite episodes of the past and my pick is Roy Choi. I want to add it's always Roy Choi. Like when we did the best of that year, you were like, I don't really care who you guys pick. We got a Roy Choi.

So I just curious. The Asian American journey he takes us through and kind of is outlook on food and making it kind of a table for people and not just this high end level of elitism. Yeah. It's not an incredible addiction story gambling.

It's a blossom episode. It is. It is. It is that gambling thing for me.

I know. That's one that you don't forget. Yeah. I think about often like I'm constantly talking about addiction to people and occasionally we'll be talking about gambling and it's like half of what I understand about the whole thing is from him.

The notion of looking in America and we just have to get even and even get even as such an metaphor but no spoilers. Spoilers. Oh, wow. Let's go to the right spot.

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He's an on chair expert. Welcome welcome welcome welcome. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Minister Mouse, the Duchess of Duluth. Oh, let's bring you in.

The sex chinchilla. Let's grow on you a little bit, hasn't it? I guess with time things will just wear away at you. You're right.

They make you really angry for a while. You're already the energy. I think we've talked about it. When you catch yourself putting energy into staying mad.

Oh, sure. I'm trying to run away freight train in your head. Then I did this. I can see it in my mind.

Now I'm actively trying to remember. That's a good thing to catch yourself on. Oh, yeah. So many of us.

Someone who doesn't do that. Nice boy. Right. Right.

Joy is a restaurant entrepreneur and a claim chef and a best-selling author. It's one of my favorite interviews. Yes. It was one of these heart connection ones.

Yes. I think he has several restaurants, Coqui BBQ and incredible restaurant. Best friend at Park MGM Las Vegas. But most importantly, he has this tremendous show called Broken Bread and it is out now season two.

That's an Emmy award and James Beard award winning series that looks at food and how interwoven it is with culture and it's fascinating. And it's kind of he uses it as a route into healing connection. Is it dare I say anthropological? Absolutely.

Aren't all things. Yeah. Please enjoy Roy Choi. I have virtually the same Jordans in that color scheme.

He came as a set with a dunks and Air Force ones from Undefeated and they did like a whole series where they were doing kind of like a Godzilla. Oh, yeah. Like battle between a Godzilla King Kong battle. I had a pair in high school that I just want more than anything.

Do you remember the air escapes? Yeah. Yeah, they were kind of like Air Force I guess. And mine were kind of a gray and a blue and a white.

I just keep waiting for them to come out. Right. You don't have the original pair. Even hard to find a picture of those things because they also came in brown in white and I really I would love the brown ones, I would love them.

Many times. I guess so for as a street, we're like, I'll look at them and drop the, we'll drop a little seed for the air tax release. I want to ask you about it because I imagine where it come from a semi-similar situation which is like I wanted Jordan so fucking bad. Of course we couldn't afford them.

And I was in an interview in Detroit five years ago that person interviewing me had on a brand new beautiful set of fours. And I was like, oh my gosh, you've kept those that beautiful? I'm sorry, they were fives. And he goes, no, they're like a month old.

They just came out and I was like, hold on a second. I literally had no idea. He goes, oh yeah, go to this thing. In the interview, I hit, sent in about three pairs of the ones I always wanted.

And I was just can't fucking stop. There you go. Do you have a ton of sneakers? I only wear what's given to me for free.

Smart. I'm not like as big a shoe fiend as most people are. I'm not like a sneaker head. I just like, I like wearing shoes.

I don't like collecting them. So as soon as I get on my wear them and then I go on to the next one. I do too. I've never really been a collector of many things.

I don't know, I've never had attachments to like material items. Was there anything though, is it like a junior high kid that you wanted that you couldn't have that you've now gotten? No, that's pretty weird. Yeah, I mean, I've had addictions.

And I've gone down really deep holes. And I've stayed attached to many, many things. Like just where I won't let it go. And I've written like horrible love letters on the back of pizza boxes.

Like the John Farrell scene in the swingers like on the first day. So I've gone down dark holes. Not that I'm perfect in that way. But I've never been attached to material items.

I don't know why. But I think it might have been a foreshadowing or precursor to who I ultimately became, which is creating businesses that make no money. LAUGHTER You like to be like, well, it's my destiny from Talid. Well, yeah, you and I share the addiction thing.

And I can't wait to talk about that. Often then, I guess it has also smoked crack. So it's like, right? Yeah.

I can't imagine you get interviewed by a ton of people that are smoked. I could deal crack either. No, no, no. Well, they're not open about it.

Or they may not have ascended to a level where they're actually a position to look back on it. Because that really weeds out the recreational users in the attics. It does. There's not a lot of like recreational.

I feel like I moved to the front of the classroom with crack because it was one week. It was just a burner of seven days, just complete rollercoaster all the way through. The lips are burnt to fucking oblivion. So oblivion walking through the fucking Hell's Kitchen.

That's where all the crack was made in New York. I went so far through that I came out the other end and I was like, it just sucks. I'm done. So that's had you said a nice seven day run.

Yeah. Oh, well, that's like a vacation again. That's incredible. I have to say, you find yourself in the perfect environment because you do not want to be like day six of smoking crack in the wilderness.

You want to be around other zombies. And New York was really like that at that time. I'm from here speaking of pizza boxes and love letters. I went to go visit a girl that I met in Korea.

And without warning her, I showed up at her doorstep in Providence, Rhode Island. Women love that. They love that. They do love the pictures at all.

It was just before texting. This was just a knock. Sure. You had an address, a hard address.

And a hard address. Show up. And then I knock on the door and then obviously it didn't go well. So then I ended up in New York at the YMCA.

It was $7 a night in Times Square. And that whole street that I stayed on was like crack Avenue and zombies. Like it was crazy. What year was this?

It was 94. I was just going to say I was living in downtown Detroit 94. And yeah, it was just ubiquitous. Yes.

It was rare to see somebody not struggling with addiction out on the street. It was heartbreaking. But I didn't feel so bad because I was partaking. So I think we should just start first and foremost with, you're born and sold.

Mom and dad met here. But mom's North Korean, dad South Korean. Then they moved to South Korea. Had you and you now come to LA at two?

Yeah. So they both came here for college, graduate school. So my mom was from a well-to-do family. My grandfather was a gangster.

He was Tony Montana. Oh, really? Yeah. My maternal grandfather.

So can you just tell me the time like the Korean War is 50? Just need a 53. Right. Up until 50, they're living in North Korea.

And the war happens. They all flee. But my grandfather, G, he figures things out. He gets to Seoul.

I mean, Seoul at that time was basically dirt roads. And buildings all blown up. It was just crazy at that time. The war was coming off of the Japanese occupation.

Because it's a peninsula in the Pacific Ocean, and we were at the brunt of the whole Cold War between communism and the US. Right. And Korea was the pond in between it all. Because that was the foothold into Asia.

And so most North Koreans came down across the border. He closed. He's in Seoul. And it's like Tony Montana in the detention center.

Washington dishes in Miami. Tony Montana's a scarf face reference. Just you know my name. I actually did know that.

Even though I haven't seen Skar. Anyone in Seoul? I have. They want you to be left behind.

But it's kind of one of those decades. I'll take my references. Yeah. And so he figured things out.

He was hustling the whole time. And he eventually took over kind of like what you would call Midtown Manhattan. Like he took over and owned pretty much all the real estate. So my mom's family was very well to do.

But that's a whole other story because they lost everything. They had nine sisters, two brothers. Both brothers got addicted to gambling and lost the whole fortune. So you come by this addiction stuff.

Honestly, it's crazy. Yeah. And so they sent her here to art school. A decade from the told opposite.

He came from the country in the South. Ended up in the city. His father was just a normal everyday banker. But he figured it out and became like the head of his class.

So he came on a scholarship to America. They met. And then they decided to go back. I always make fun of them.

I'm like, why the fuck you go back? So they went back and they realized. Because for a lot of immigrant families, once you taste America, it's hard to go back to where you're from. Yeah.

But I also understand the desire. And I don't know what this was there, is but to make it where you're from. I think part of it's Korea comes from a very Confucius model, very male dominated, very respected elders, respect your parents, always pay tribute to your family. So I think they were going back to do things right.

But once you taste American, they were here in the 60s. They were driving beautiful cobalt blue and polys, wearing Ray bands, smoking cigarettes, drinking scotch. And they go back. And I think they realized as soon as they step back in Korea, they're like, we got to get back.

Well, also they have a new thought, which is you. I forgot about this. This is probably the reason why they came back. I was born with a deformity.

Oh, I totally forgot about that. What was the deformity? I was born with a cleft palate. Oh, OK.

Yeah, pretty bad one. So cleft palate is when your whole top part of your lip is ripped open when you're born. Yes. So you're born with a hole in your face.

But back then in Korea, they were stitching people together with duct tape. So I don't think they saw me come out. They're like, they didn't know what to do. I'm assuming that it comes out kind of sealed where the crack is.

You can just place those together and hope for the best. It's a surgery. It's a surgery. Yeah.

But there weren't many of them in Korea, I think, at that time. And again, you're talking about industrialized country coming off of war mainly built around textiles, not the most advanced medical equipment and training in the world. They stick together. It was all messed up.

But the thing is, because Korea or any country outside of the United States is so homogenous, what happens is if you have anything that is just slightly different, as little as being bold-legged, buck tooth, whatever, you stick out and you can't make it. Yeah, if you're a double-looking, this is a spot for you. America is the spot for you. I'm going to put all these ugly and be freaks together and some beautiful people.

Absolutely. I forgot. That's why we came back. OK.

And then in your childhood, they're on a liquor store. They had a restaurant. They had a dry cleaning spot. They ultimately went into jewelry, starting with door to door in the becoming up successful business.

And you also moved nonstop, is that? Absolutely. Every couple of years, because again, when you're an immigrant in this country, the whole folklore or tale of coming with nothing in your pocket is a true story. Yes.

It's a real thing. I took an LAGography class in college. The Koreans have a pretty damn good network once you're here, right? Like the whole El Hombra area, they loan within their community and they help people start businesses.

And there is a nice network for companies. Yeah, Asians did that with each other, especially Koreans, because no one else would take care of us. We're the forgotten minority in many ways. Big time, because you're the model minority.

Or people think or assume that we're getting benefits that other minorities aren't. But in many cases, we're not. We're just invisible and forgotten. We're still getting the nose and the closed doors and the racism.

It's just coming in ways that aren't so overt. There's a few different minority groups that America doesn't seem to have much compassion for. Jewish folks, because in general, the Jewish folks, they know were their doctor or they've done well in this country. A lot of people have those experiences with Asians as business owners or classmates.

And then they ignore this whole other section. And they seem to have a lack of compassion, which we extend to everyone else who's a minority group. Absolutely. And just because a certain sector of a certain race or population or culture is successful, that doesn't mean that everyone else is successful.

Right. Or that everyone else has opportunities. If you look statistically, and I know this podcast is about nerding out and getting the details of info, if you look at the economics behind a lot of Asian communities within the United States, we rank as probably the poorest. Right.

We're only thinking, and I'm going to be speaking way too broadly and generally, but we're only thinking of the Japanese student visa. We're not thinking of the mong or the Southeast Asians. We're not thinking of any of those people. Absolutely.

And every country and every culture is so different from each other. But we all get grouped into one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you've traveled Asian, each place is different as imaginable, really.

It's very different. The food, the culture, I mean, we don't even look the same. But again, it's just the ignorance sometimes of anyone that's not from that part of the world. It's just easier to broad stroke things and put everyone into one box.

What's funny is that most people that get subjugated to that type of stereotype or that type of broad stroking, we don't think that way about anyone else. Although I do have a friend who's Chinese who moved here when she was 10, she was like, I could not fucking tell one white person apart. So that's also the thing. Yeah, we even had a female black professor who studies this and she said, all in groups can't recognize out groups.

Really? Yeah. So black folks think white people all look the same. White people think Asian is the only person here to think we all look the same.

And by we, I mean white people who I'm speaking for. Looking at Matt Damon right now behind you. Right. How would you know?

Is that me or is that Matt Damon? I did think it was you when I first talked to it. But I was just out of class. But anyway, this is a phenomenon that we all experience.

It's like we get really, really acute wisdom of differentiating our group because we're around it nonstop and then we don't have much experience with other groups. Maybe the only difference is sometimes why people just take it to the next level. Oh, they've served you. We're the way defenders because we then take that and then we build a whole system off of it.

Well, also because you don't have to know what it feels like to be marginalized. So like if you're on the other end of someone just grouping you in, you're just intellectually aware that that's wrong. Well, you pay a different price because the white people are the key holders to every opportunity, whereas it's not reversed. Like we have to know the difference.

Exactly. And white people don't have to. Yeah, well put. The other thing I found really, really fascinating.

And again, I was in this class in 99. So we were not very far off the LA Rodney King riots. And so much of that, I feel like, was explained in this class. One of them being this intense tension between often Korean store owners and black customers in these neighborhoods.

And they broke it down in the simplest ways. Like the way you show respect in Korea is to not engage eye contact, is to be quiet, is to basically answer when asked a question. Like that's how they would show respect to a customer that comes in the store. And then for the black community, it's literally the opposite.

It's just a tinderbox of cultural differences. Yeah, but again, that was only a microcosm, a little sliver that the media blew up. And that even professors and teachers and curriculums blew up into representing the whole relationship between the Korean community and the black community. If you really go down to the streets, if I could take you guys to Watts right now, Compton, South Central, anywhere, we can go all the way back to the 80s and early 90s to now.

There's always a Mrs. Lee and Mr. Park and Mr. Kim and whoever that runs a store that has great relationships with the neighborhood.

And what you mentioned about the cultural differences, yeah, that existed. But there was also nonverbal acts of love that were shared amongst each other, whether that was tab systems also being just included in the neighborhood, brought to family picnics and gatherings, stuff like that. I mean, it went both ways, but there were certain cases where people were stubborn against each other. And so you were in that, you lived up for periods in South Central and what was your personal experience?

I just get along with people. And so there were times where I hated my family or my culture for treating certain people certain ways. And there were times where I had to stick up for certain things and there were times where I was caught in the middle of it, where I was doing beer runs or stealing stuff. And then the store owner's Korean.

But I'm just an American kid hanging out. You grew up in Detroit area. I'm just a street kid hanging out in LA with a bunch of other knuckles. Doing the red shit.

Doing the red shit. Not even thinking about any connections to your family. You're betraying your family. You're betraying your family.

You know, yeah, Confucia don't mean shit to me. You know, I'm just going in there grabbing shit. And I'm running out and then all of a sudden I see the face of disappointment behind the counter. And to have to carry the weight of that, it sucks.

Like that's, yeah. Those kids were being kids and you were betraying your people. Yeah. That just takes a different place.

And then you got to go out the store and then just continue to be a kid. Yeah. But then you're carrying the weight internally. Especially when you're Asian, you kind of have to maneuver through that where you're carrying a lot of this silent guilt or the silent shame.

Yeah, yeah. When you're just doing American shit. That's right. Like just growing up.

How many places did you live, do you think? Between arriving at two years old and then let's say going off to the military school. Eight to 10, yeah. Now here's a really easy theory to concoct.

I moved a ton as well. And I crave control like you can't imagine. Do you think cooking was like, oh gosh, here's this eight by eight area that I am in total control over. And I know what the outcome will be if I do it correctly.

I didn't consciously confront that because I was so immersed within cooking. So sometimes cooking is all we have as families, especially my family and my extended family. So as Asian immigrants, especially in the era that I grew up, we took a lot of shit, man. It was part culture, part language, part just not knowing how to react, but a lot of that stuff, you just keep quiet and you just put your head down and you just keep going.

People yelling horrible things that you throwing things that you. A ton of the hip hop that I love that came out of LA in the late 80s, early 90s is just chock full of negative Asian stuff. Oh yeah. It was hard for me to grapple with, especially when like you made Black Korea.

Yeah. You know, it was hard for me because those were my heroes. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they're saying these really horrible things about my family.

And it was really hard for me to reconcile the two for a very long time. And I think ultimately I think that came to define the philosophy of kogi, the truck. Instead of reacting in road rage towards it all, I kept it with me and it took me a long time to figure out what will my reaction to it be. It's so cool.

Because I think the majority of people are going to feel, at least the pressure to commit to one side or the other. Yeah. As opposed to thinking like I insist on weaving these together. Building bridges.

Yeah. But sometimes those bridges can take 30 years, like for me. You know, but ultimately I'm just so happy that I stayed alive long enough to be able to build that bridge. But we ate a lot of shit.

So that's just the way it was. But part of his language too, language and culture, because when things get pushed too far, I've seen my uncles kick nine people's asses at one time. So it's not that we can't fight back or that we won't. It's just that in many cases, the first wave of immigrants, Asian immigrants didn't know what the proper protocol was.

Let's add that this normal system to deal with that, you're not included. No more black folks were included. So a white person, it's usually they know to call the cops. And you got to remember a lot of countries that these people come from, the cops are corrupt.

The governments are corrupt. That's the whole reason they're here in the first place. So then you have that, you have the language barrier, you have the cultural incomprehension of what you're supposed to do. So that's why food is so important.

Because during the week, it's so hard that the only time that we had together was through food. In all my extended family, my aunts, my uncles, my parents, they would actually be cooking all the time. Like all the time. And I don't mean making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I mean, making stews, broths, dumpling, full blown restaurant shit in their apartments. And then we would all meet on the weekends and have these tremendous pot licks every single weekend. It was like growing up with Quincy Jones as your dad or something. Like Steph Curry, like how Steph Curry grew up, like on the NBA arena.

That's how it is for us with food. So I never really used it as a space of, here's my little private Idaho type thing. It was a given. Yeah.

I'm curious what owning the restaurant in Anaheim was like. Were you like, oh, great. This is a gateway to peace. Or were you ever like, fuck you.

You're the same fuckers that are yelling and saying, shit behind my back. And now you want to come and enjoy this insane food and act like that ain't the case? I love how you just put it all. Because for people that are marginalized, we never hold any grudges in many cases.

Well, again, you don't have a luxury too. And in many cases, when we do have opportunities, we're just giving back because we're survivors. And we know ourself worth. And we know ourselves, whether that's the African American culture, all the way to Asian Americans, whoever we know where we come from, we know what we represent.

And so you can't just stop it. It just keeps growing and mushrooming. And so for us, it's just about sharing. So no, we don't hold those grudges at all.

I am totally shamed written to report that in Michigan, in the 80s, if people went out for Chinese food, you hear several of the families trying out their Chinese accent. You see people taking pictures that were offensive. The sad part is you go outside LA, it's still like that. Anywhere that's not like New York, LA, San Francisco.

It's like that we saw during the pandemic. Even New York, LA, San Francisco had to deal with Asian violence too in that same pattern that you just described in the 80s, which is so bizarre. I always equate it to the world that you come from Hollywood. Let's make clear, I don't come from Hollywood.

You come from Detroit, you come from yourself. It's because we don't have enough stories and representation within Hollywood. So people are still living off of this idea of who we are. This representation through Mickey Rooney or 16 Candles of who we are.

We don't have Asian addicts, we don't have Asian people who fail, we don't have the euphoria of Asians that are dealing with sexual problems. Because we don't have any stories told about us in those manners, what happens is the image of who we are is still trapped. It's almost like trauma, it's trapped within this era and this age. Well, where I'm from in Michigan, my introduction to someone speaking in an Indian accent is a cartoon version, which we've actually had a lengthy, yeah, we had Hank on to go through that whole thing.

And again, I'm embarrassed to say that I had a best friend who was Indian and really learned the story and really learned how few people represent her. Until Mindy arrives, it's like, who's Monica on TV? The studios networks all these people. They had a market driven assessment of everything, which is like, well, who's gonna go see this?

And they were rolling. John, she was a friend of ours, crazy rich ages, enormous. Everyone was wrong as it turns out. There's just room now for more niche stories.

Like when it was just the network TV shows. Like, yeah, that's a big risk being realistic about who people are, like, they want tropes. I agree with that, but I also don't agree with it, only in effect it with all the streamers out there and all the content and all of the shows being bought every single day, right now, someone's zoopitching a show. The proportion of Asian storytelling is still not represented.

Yeah. What percentage do you know of the US population we could consider Asian? Well, when you say Asian, you have to consider Pacific Island, you have to consider India. I will not consider India.

That's a long standing debate. He always wants to zebra him out. I curve them out. I argue with that as well.

Y'all wicked in Hollywood. Y'all got to hide. You sure he's serious? I was Asian, you know, no, I didn't.

He still got to deal with the races and stuff like that. But yeah, you got to consider all that. I don't know what, can you Google percent of AAPI? Do you know Rob is an eighth Asian?

No. Yeah, he's an eight? No, he's not. An eighth Filipino.

So what is it? 12 and a half. 12 and a half. His wife is half Filipino.

So his son is 25%. And since he's his dad, he's 12.5%. I hate this. It's not how it works.

And I'm scared that some people will really think that's how it works. That's like contact high. Exactly. We said maybe Rob, the other kids will be actually over 100% more than as well.

You'll be truly Asian because you'll be overachieving. Yeah. He's seven or eight kids. He's going to be like 200% Filipino.

It's going to be so fun. 5.7%. OK. And I think that includes Indian.

But only 5.7% of the country is Asian. According to the 2019 Census Bureau. That's because probably like 25% more didn't fill in the blood. Yeah.

There's no way there's only 6%. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare. So in your really interesting story of moving everywhere, having all these different interests, making dumplings at eight, mom selling her own signature brand of kimchi around you, you first go to Korea out of college or before college?

Well, first time I went was in high school. My parents took me there when I was 16. That was the first time I ever went back. Did you speak Korean?

No. I never really spoke that good Korean. I understand it because you know parents speak to me in it. But I don't speak that well.

I always say like I'm like a L.H. Chicano but in Korean my Mexican homies like they don't speak Spanish, you know, but they understand everything. They're grandma and mom's yelling at them. They don't speak.

Once mom hits that certain pitch in her voice, yeah, you start understanding. You know the words are out here. You're pretty sure I want to be inside. So when you went to Korea though, you taught English there?

Yeah, that was later on. I was in college. I don't know if they're still doing it now, but there was a whole era for us as like second generation Koreans where we just like were fuck ups here. And then we're like fucking gods over there.

Like we're like intellectual savants over there. Can you speak English? Yeah. OK, OK.

Yeah, but it was great because you'd go there and you'd make like a ton of money and you'd have a class that was just completely into you. And you could say whatever you want. I think the whole time I taught English, I don't even think I really taught anything. Sure, that's right.

Yeah, I just taught. And they just kind of took the class to like here the words and here the lingo and the rhythm. This sounds like a dream job for me. Because he's loved to talk.

It was the podcast before podcast. It sounds like you were already so immersed in the culinary culture that going there must not have been that big of it. Or was there still another level that you were made aware of once you were there? No, I think once I got to Korea, what amazed me is just how fluid and affordable food is, but it's still the same food.

Here in the States, the difference between nutritional food, delicious food and processed food, it's all an economic barrier, right? Right. And so anything that is below a certain price is usually fast food in most cases, but in Korea, it's not that way at all. Right.

There's no system for that. When I first started going there, that just really opened my eyes to like, you know, food being so cheap, yet so delicious. It's like more democratized and just filled with nutrients, chili paste, ginger, garlic, green onions, different herbs. And so that opened my mind because it made food a part of culture.

I was young. I was in my early 20s. And here, when you're in your early 20s, you go out of the club, or whatever, all you're doing is just debauchery, or going through the drive-through and yelling into this fucking intercom, eating fries and big macs and this and that. My order, I can tell you right now, there's a Jack in the box in Santa Monica.

And five nights a week, I was in there ordering the ultimate cheeseburger. And then six of those tacos with the fucking buttermilk dipping sauce. And I go sit in my lazy boy and just get myself into a food coma and pass out. Over there, it opened my mind to like, food is a part of it all.

Right. So it's not just complete destruction of your body and soul and everything. And then lazy boy and cock out and then wake up. Hating yourself and getting drunk again.

It's like you can sometimes have the best meal of your life. And feel good afterwards and spend like five bucks and stay there till like four-thirty in one. Almost doesn't exist in this country. It's getting better now, obviously with the street food that's evolved, but also just food culture has evolved in the last 20 years here.

What do you think is happening with the younger generation? Because I have a theory on it. People love to write these articles like the millennials care more about avocado toast than owning a home. And on the surface, you're like, OK, so that gets the implication is they're economically irresponsible.

But the older I get, I go like, Oh, no, no, these are people who have chosen experiences over objects. Yes. And that's what's scary to everyone actually is because our economy runs on selling objects, not experiences. I know you had Dave Chang.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He started this wave. You know, and Kogi came on the heels of that. But really it was Momo Fuku that kind of broke the mold and really allowed a pathway for this millennial generation to really have something to connect that experience to.

Yeah, it was like the first punk rock Asian food offering. Yep. And it became a part of culture and he became culture and the restaurant became culture. And that just led to so many things to where now food is probably more in demand than thinkers.

Yeah. Harder to get sometimes than sneakers. We've definitely come a long way. Now that we're in it, it's hard to imagine a world where it wasn't like this.

Even 20 years ago, people weren't going from city city and having lists of like, OK, where's the best place to eat? When I grew up, there was a class aspect to it that, of course, I rejected. So it's not just that I didn't think that was a good use of my money. It also represented to me elite, like, Oh, these fucking idiots are spending $600 on dinner.

Like there was a whole chip on my shoulder about it. I agree with you on that. But also the reality was that way too. You had to spend that much.

Because food was separated. So anything that was chef driven or ingredient driven or market driven or even considered to be a part of whatever is the hottest thing in that city at that moment was all driven by price price and experience in your parents or an older generation going. And that's why I say it was Dave who broke that mold. Yeah.

My opening moment, what he did was it broke the levy to where the saltwater and the freshwater merged together, you know, and created a whole new thing. And it was just where he came in. Yeah. So like we would have the once a year nice meal.

And then of course, when we would go there, I would feel less than the whole time. And yeah, I've never felt that way walking up the moment. If we go or any of these places, I don't get that anymore. The feelings you had were real because that's exactly how they look at you.

And the staff I sometimes would be like, this fucking waiter's treating us like we don't belong here. That was another. I don't know if that was in my head or it was happening or a combination of both. It's real.

I wrote about it in the book too. Like we've always been a family of food, right? So like we would go to restaurants as I got older. I would like research these restaurants and try to take my family.

So when we had family visiting, we would go to the hottest restaurants in town. And you know, you get treated as if you don't belong there. And you know, this waiter's fucking, you know, the way he did it. Yeah, he's not the upper class or he wouldn't be working.

Yeah. But he somehow developed this language and this style and they're just trying to get you out of there. Now things can not only be tailored, but they're also meeting you where you're at versus you having to put on a nice suit and go to a fancy place. And I think the staff has increasingly felt cool that they're doing it.

Not that they're like, they too should be blue chip family third generation. Well, you know, like they've got a different swagger, which is cool. They don't have to wear all the same uniform. You know, they can come to work with what they're wearing and have their own style.

Yeah. And there's just been an evolution of what service and style is in American, what is considered to be excellence. And not just in food, I think across the board and there you see it with fashion, you see it with everything. But I think there's been an evolution of again, what excellence is before excellence was defined by that.

Well, rich, the rich, blue chip, general, all that. But now excellence can be defined in any way. And you're seeing that in food. I think before it used to be, it was hard to have it was limited because it was fancy.

But I still think there's something to be said about wanting something limited or that you can't have. But now it's like you make a reservation, you go pick it up in an alley and they drop it's like a secret thing. And it's not fancy, but it's still like exciting and exclusive. I think it's for the right reason.

Yeah. Exactly. What you're touching on is the exclusiveness is cool because it's like nerdy exclusiveness. Yeah.

And there's real scarcity because there's only so much that can be produced. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's a beautiful thing right now.

Boy, I've really kind of under undervalued, underrecognized how much of our culture is driven by food. Of course, I always think of film and music and fashion, but I don't think I've really incorporated as much how food drives so much of this. Well, I come from a foodless culture is probably why. Yeah, you're Midwest grew up in an era where you were being infiltrated by the fast food advertising frozen food.

That was all deliberate. You are a product of that experiment. I just spoke with Alice Waters, who is the godmother of this movement of organics of eating sustainably to the ground. What happened in the 70s is that this was a deliberate act by the advertising and food corporations to feed us this idea that things need to be fast, fast, disposable.

Our time is money. We need to keep it moving. There's no time for food because all the time should be focused on what you need to do to push your upward mobility. Yeah, rich.

Yeah. Yeah. So food was the casualty and there was millions and billions of dollars behind that that fuels that advertising to get us to that. Point where we were completely desensitized and numbed to even caring about food.

Yeah. And it took until probably like the early 2000s for us to break out of that cocoon. I'm just so glad because we could have never evolved beyond that. I see the picture in my mind of everything that was from the 70s until the year 2000.

And it's so bizarre. It is so bizarre for a country to completely devalue food to the lowest level to where it actually you are being told that you don't even have to eat. Ideally, yeah, you'd eat a capsule at the beginning of the month that would nurse you for the next 30 days. There's no time for it.

There's no time for it. And none of it matters. And flavor doesn't matter. Nutrition doesn't matter.

Nothing matters within this realm of food. Growing it, wasting it, eating it, cooking it. Oh my God. This is so fascinating.

So will you please tell us about how you started watching them roll? Lagaz? Yeah. On the Food Network.

Yeah. And that kind of like changed the course of your life. It wasn't really an obsession more than it was a last cry for help. OK.

So I was here in Los Angeles. This was 1995. I had just come off of a four year deep addiction dive in the gambling. What was your game of choice?

It went from this game called Pan9, which is kind of a card interpretation of PIGAL. And it's similar to Baccarat, but you use four cards. You use three in the hole and you can pull one. Are you getting chills right now explaining that?

Yeah. Getting nine pictures or zero is the whole thing. Yeah. And then eventually led to poker and then high limit poker.

Texas Holdemer. Yeah. And then playing like. At Commerce every day.

At Commerce every day. High School Club Commerce. Back then it was before the whole World Series of Poker Day. So it was like.

Just Doyle Bronson was popular. It was me against Doyle Bronson. And that's too younger. Yeah.

It's too younger. And Telly Sivalis is basically it. There was no like real no limit games. It was all structured.